Kym Worthy sits down with Kate Snow to talk about justice for thousands of rape victims

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy will take a national spotlight Friday on NBC’s Rock Center.

Worthy sat down with NBC’s Kate Snow to shed light on her mission to bring justice to thousands of rape victim’s across the city.

--NBC's Kate Snow

“You’ve been called the toughest woman in Detroit,” Snow says in her interview.

“I’ve been called a lot of things, that’s just one of them,” Worthy responds.

In August of 2009, more than 10,000 rape kits were found in a Detroit police overflow warehouse, most of them untested.

Worthy is now on a crusade to test the DNA in every one of those rape kits, in hopes that some women might finally see justice.

“We’re talking 10,000 cases women reported,” Worthy told Snow. “Women whose lives and what had happened to them was sitting on a shelf and nobody cares. I was shocked.”

During the Rock Center interview, Worthy said her prosecutors are overworked, underpaid and have too much to do, but they volunteered their own time because they were all concerned about the issue.

These cases will no longer go forgotten, since the kits have been discovered the prosecutors have been sending them out in waves to get tested, trying to catch up.

“There’s a feeling among the victims, I think, that they lived through hell, they were victimized and then ignored,” Snow told Worthy. “No one seemed to care, no one noticed and then you came along. And you helped.”

“I think, I am flattered by that, but I would like to think that any prosecutor would do that,” said Worthy. “I hope, more than anything, it gives hope to those women who were ignored that we are working each day and every day to try and fix things.

For those of us here in Detroit, the results have been disturbing, revealing serial rapists remain on our streets. Worthy says she won’t stop until they are all behind bars.

Kate Snow’s interview with Kym Worthy can be seen on Rock Center with Brian Williams at 10 p.m.